Unbroken
by Average Fiction
Summary: When Eren Yeager died three years ago, it caused the dissolution of the most notorious syndicate in the world. However, when recent revelations imply that Eren is still very much alive, countless questions arise that now must be answered; the most important of them being which one of his former comrades was the one who set him up to be killed.
1. Prologue

"It really is such a pleasure, as always, to see you again Miss Leonhart. It's been far too long since you last paid me the honor of visiting. I was starting to fear that you'd discovered a different broker to rely upon."

"You know where everybody goes, who they meet with, and when they do it. Your eyes are everywhere in this city. If I was meeting with somebody else to buy intel, I have a hard time believing that you wouldn't know about it." Annie replies to the slightly portly, balding man as she follows him down the hall and into his well-decorated office. He ushers her in with a broad knowing smile as if to say, "Touché", in response to Annie's claim.

He wears a finely-tailored and expensive looking suit, with a bright red tie and Italian leather shoes upon his feet. His office matches the proclivity of his wardrobe; the furniture having been hand-carved out of wood with ornate and intricate decorations. Books upon books sit upon a large shelf tucked against the back wall, Annie assuming that each one has probably been read from cover to cover more than once. He gestures for her to take a seat, and she obliges him as she does so; getting comfortable in the cushioned wooden chair while he walks around and does the same in his large leather chair on the opposite side of his mahogany desk. She now sits face-to-face with the man she knows only by the pseudonym, "Pockets", so named due to the wealth of information he's seemingly able to pull out from nowhere. It's the only thing about him that belies his otherwise impeccable professional style, but he rather enjoys the mild whimsy of the nickname.

"Well, I know that you aren't typically one to engage in much idle chit-chat, Miss Leonhart, so shall we proceed straight to the business which has brought you here?" Pockets asks with another small grin, already aware of the answer he's going to receive even before Annie nods to him to do just that. She's been a client of his for almost a year and a half now, and it doesn't take long to understand the way that she operates. Sitting across the desk from him in an oversized, unbuttoned, light gray suit jacket with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows, a shirt on underneath it of blue and white horizontal stripes, a pair of rather dark blue denim jeans, and a pair of black combat boots, her composed and icy demeanor indicates that this meeting will go exactly as all of their previous ones have.

"Of course. You have come to me seeking assistance in determining a certain somebody's identity, is that correct?" Pockets follows up as he spins his chair a bit to the left and begins flipping through a stack of folders sat upon his desk, glancing up at Annie occasionally while thumbing through the papers inside.

"Somebody has been beating me to my contracts recently. I show up and the target has already been taken care of. I don't like having my time wasted, and I don't like not getting paid." Annie says flatly, her steely blue eyes narrowing a bit as she sits back in her chair with her small legs crossed. Three times over the past month, she'd been hired to do a job only to discover that somebody else had already beaten her to the punch. That many occurrences in such a short span of time led her to believe it couldn't just be a coincidence. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but that's what she was here to find out.

"Ah yes…you aren't the only one who has contacted me about this problem as of late. It seems that there's an enthusiastic fellow out there who possesses quite a knack for interfering in what others believe to be their business." Pockets replies as he bends down and opens up one of his desk drawers, the irony of his words not lost on Annie considering that Pockets has made an entire business off of other people's business. The broker of information lets out a small "Aha!" as he apparently finds what it is that he's been searching through his things for, smiling back up pleasantly at Annie and shutting the drawer back up now that he's pulled out a rather thin blue folder which assumably contains all the information that the diminutive yet intimidating young blonde desires.

Annie doesn't speak as her informant opens the file up and starts reading excerpts of it under his breath, only watching him as he does so and reaching behind her head to adjust her loose ponytail a bit. Within a minute, Pockets has found himself content with everything he's just scanned over, and he closes the folder back up to place it down flat atop his desk, hands folded neatly over it.

"Rest assured however, Miss Leonhart, that I am quite confident when I say to you that I believe I have surmised just who the individual in question is. I don't think I need to tell you though that this information is not something I can just give away for free. After all, I don't enjoy not getting paid just as much as you don't." Pockets says leaning forward in his leather seat a bit while Annie remains against the sturdy wooden back of hers.

"I imagine most people would share a disdain for not being paid to do what they're best at. I've already arranged to have the funds transferred over to you through our secure line. Now tell me what you have." Annie replies staring straight ahead at the stout, middle-aged man seated across from her, watching the corners of his mouth curl into another grin before he speaks.

"Wonderful. Well in that case I suppose there's no reason for me not to share with you what I've uncovered. I am glad that you are presently seated for this as well, as the information I'm about to share might be quite a lot for you to handle." Pockets says, causing Annie to raise her thin eyebrows slightly in confusion. "Now this was not a very easy discovery to make whatsoever. The perpetrator in question that you, and others like you, have been recently plagued by is quite skilled when it comes to covering up his own tracks. I was rather fortunate, I must say, that he left me with the tiniest of cracks to slip through in his defenses though. From there, it took some time, but eventually I managed to reveal all of his secrets. Therefore, I can tell you with only the most miniscule margin of doubt, that the man you're looking for is none other than one Mister Eren Yeager." Pockets continues before finally unveiling to Annie the identity of the person who's been interfering in her contracts, and for just a brief moment in time the blonde-haired ice queen breaks her ever-present composure with the look of shock on her face.

The expression vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared though, and Annie digs her fingers into the wooden armrests of her chair for a second before standing up and staring down at Pockets, making for quite the daunting presence despite standing only a hair over five feet tall.

"Eren Yeager is dead. Tell me that I didn't come all the way down here just for you to lie to me." She says with venom in her voice as Pockets adjusts his tie and nods lightly, raising a hand up in an effort to tell Annie to remain calm.

"Yes, I am well aware that the unanimous belief over the last three years has been that Eren Yeager unfortunately perished during the incident at the Asiata Complex, but it seems that nobody did their due diligence in making certain that he was deceased either over this time period. There was a funeral for him, but no record of his body ever being recovered, no confirmation that I could find of anybody ever identifying his corpse either."

"He was killed in an explosion. As close as he was to the blast, there probably wasn't any body left to recover. Eren is dead. Whatever your sources are telling you, they're wrong." Annie rebuts, still firm in the belief that she and everybody else has held for the last three years, which is that Eren was killed in an explosion when a covert job went horribly wrong. She was at the Asiata Complex, and she can still vividly remember hearing the boom and feeling the walls vibrate around her when it happened. The moment still occasionally haunts her in her dreams.

"I'm afraid that my sources are never wrong Miss Leonhart. I would think that you have partaken in my services enough times by now to know this. I understand that this must be difficult news for you to process, but I can guarantee you that Eren Yeager is alive and well. And…I can tell you where to find him." Pockets says as he too stands and wears a smirk upon his pudgy face, reaching a hand into the front pocket of his jacket and pulling out a small flash drive in between his thumb and index finger.

All at once Annie feels overwhelmed by the sudden possibility of her former comrade still being alive; her mind rushing with a thousand different thoughts while outwardly she focuses on maintaining her sullen demeanor, not needing anybody to detect a potential weakness in her. She reaches out to take the flash drive from Pockets, only to have the rotund, balding man pull it back out of reach.

"Of course, such information would carry a very lucrative price with it. I'm afraid that our usual fee will not cover this added bonus. You asked only for a name, and that is what you have paid for. This," Pocket states, gesturing with the flash drive still in his grip, "Will require another payment. Same standing fee as before, no negotiations." He finishes as he lays out his demands, Annie silently steaming at now being strong-armed into paying double the amount that she had anticipated for this meeting.

"Fine. I'll arrange for the transfer after I leave here. You just better hope that everything on that stick is accurate." Annie acquiesces in a bit of a huff as she reaches out her small hand and this time is rewarded by her broker who hands the drive over to her. The short, young blonde snatches it quickly and puts it directly into the front pocket of her large, charcoal jacket for safe keeping. Without another word she turns on her heel and starts heading for the office door, her business being done here.

"Oh Miss Leonhart! I'm dreadfully sorry, but I nearly forgot to mention one important detail. You see, with information as vital and sensitive as what I just gave you, I had to ensure that I went to great lengths to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. That is why I took the liberty of encrypting the data, lest anybody make an attempt to access it without my blessing." Pockets pipes up from behind Annie however, sitting back down at his desk and pretending that this information had nearly slipped his mind, Annie already well aware of where this is headed and not even bothering to turn back around to face him.

"I would be more than happy to decrypt it for you, of course. It would only just require another moderate transaction on your part, as compensation for the time and labor that it would take to do so. I'm sure you understand." He adds with a grin plastered upon his plump face, quite pleased with himself and the way he's managed to squeeze Annie for three times the usual amount of money she pays whenever she's in need of information.

Annie, however, has plans of her own already developing in her head. If the data she was now in possession of really did contain proof that Eren was alive, and it could tell her exactly where he was, she knew she needed to see it. With the encryption that Pockets claims to have placed on it though, it would be nearly impossible for her to hack it herself. Her expertise in computers and coding was nowhere near broad enough to match somebody like Pockets…but she knew someone who could; someone who would share her interest in finding out whether or not Eren still lived.

"I understand. Just like I'm sure you'll understand when I tell you no thanks. I wouldn't want you to have to waste your time undoing your own work. I'll take care of it on my own." Annie says with her hands in the pockets of her jeans as she stands there with her back turned, having to imagine the smile dropping from Pockets' face and finding it a satisfying enough image to end this meeting on; opening up the office door, walking out, and shutting it behind her before he has the chance to say a single word in protest.

* * *

Author's Postscript: Hey, thank you all for taking the time to read the prologue and introduction to what I'm hoping will be a really great adventure. I appreciate you spending your valuable time reading my work, and I promise you'll be glad that you did. Chapters in the future will be longer than this. I just wanted something succinct to get things off the ground and start spinning the wheels.

If you want to keep up to date on this story and anything else I publish, please make sure to follow both this story and me as well. Your follows and your reviews really help and it's always nice to know when people like and appreciate what you're doing. You can also follow me on Tumblr - - to get updates of how my work is progressing and when new chapters or stories might be uploaded.


	2. Mutual Friends

The click of keys turning in the ignition followed by the dying hum of the engine left the SUV quiet after a few seconds, save for the sounds of its driver and passenger both unbuckling their seatbelts and shortly thereafter pushing open their doors before throwing them back shut in near unison.

"So how do you want to do this?" Bertolt asks simply as he stands by his door gazing across the street at the two-story brick building they're here to pay a visit to, glancing to his side as tall, blonde partner in crime walks around from the driver's side to join him.

"Same way we always do things Bert. We have a very particular set of skills, you and I. We'll go in loud and we'll go in hard. The whole thing will take less than ten minutes I bet." Reiner replies with an unmistakable smirk curled upon his lips, the chiseled features of his face making him seem all the more confident in his abilities and likelihood of success. Bertolt simply gave a nod in response, acquiescing to the rudimentary but often effective plan and waiting for a gap in the traffic before striding across the street alongside Reiner to put it into motion.

The two of them had been given a contract by a local organized crime boss to seek out an ex-associate of his who had gone into hiding after fleecing him out of several thousands of dollars. When his own men couldn't turn him up, he called upon some Fixers. If you needed to get a critical or sensitive job done that required you to perhaps skate around the boundaries of the law, a Fixer was the person that you went to; provided that you had the right connections and the necessary funds to provide just compensation, of course.

Reiner Braun and Bertolt Hoover happened to be one of the most well-renowned Fixer duos in the country; both of them having previously been members of the infamous Jericho Syndicate that was once considered by and large to be the most elite assembled group of Fixers anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, the extralegal organization dissolved after the shocking death of their leader, Eren Yeager, a little more than three years ago during a job that went awry. Following Eren's death, a power struggle ensued within the Jericho Syndicate that ultimately led to their fatal fracturing. With the team unable to rally behind a new head – colloquially assigned the title of Maven – and with so many splintered factions dividing them, their downfall was inevitable.

After the Syndicate was no more, all of the members went their separate ways. Some stayed in contact with one another, and some actually remained quite close. Such was the case with Reiner and Bertolt, though they had been working together long before ever being recruited as part of the Jericho Syndicate. They had grown up as childhood friends, and the forged bond between them was practically unbreakable. It was the least surprising thing to anyone then that they had resumed working as an independent duo afterwards. The two of them made for quite the excellent team, as well as an imposing force that you most certainly didn't want to have tracking you down given their intimidating physiques and impressive skills.

The small brass bell hanging over the front door of the watch and jewelry repair shop let off a high-pitched ring to announce the arrival of a new customer, prompting the man standing behind the counter at the back of the store to look up from the magazine he had been idly flipping through.

"Welcome to Arturo's Watch and Gold Repairs; how can I help you today gentlemen?" asked the man in a vaguely exotic accent sounding to be from somewhere in Latin America. He was tall, though not as tall as either the blonde or brunette who had just walked in. His dark hair was slicked back and he wore a thin gold chain around his neck; looking half-mobster and half-greaser at the same time, which was appropriate considering his status as an employee working under the man whom Reiner and Bertolt were here to meet.

"Yeah, thanks. I was hoping you guys could take a look at my watch; it's been on the fritz lately. Stops counting the seconds sometimes." Reiner responds to the clerk without missing a beat, walking up to the counter as he fiddles with the clasp to the silver watch he wears around his left wrist while Bertolt heads over to one of the side walls to look over the trinkets sitting inside of a glass display case.

Once Reiner gets his watch off, he hands it over to the man in his early-thirties working behind the counter of this store that serves primarily as a front for other illegal operations. The man sets the watch down flat upon the glass top of the counters so that he can bend down closely to inspect it, unwittingly allowing the big, tall, blonde ox standing before him to quickly grab his gelled head of hair and smash it directly through the layer of plate glass comprising the top of the display case built into the counter. Tiny shards of shattered glass fly through the air, glimmering in reflected light as they do so and rain down noisily upon the linoleum tiled floor of the shop. The clerk remains unconsciously slumped in the now broken display case with blood trickling out from the multiple cuts skewered across his face as a result of the jagged glass he was sent crashing through.

The cacophony of sound is enough to alert another grunt who had been sitting in the employee break room area located behind a closed door marked with a sign reading "PRIVATE", rushing out to see what the hell was happening only to be met by Bertolt as he stepped out into the main showroom. The statuesque, dark-haired young man greeted the concerned fellow with a swift boot the gut which sent him reeling back into the break room, which Bertolt followed him into to continue pressing the attack. At the same time, Reiner took the initiative to head back over to the front door of the repair shop and flip the sign hanging on it around so that it read "CLOSED" to anybody walking by outside. He couldn't help but smirk a little bit in amusement at himself as he walked back over to assist his companion, entering the employee lounge just in time to watch Bertolt lift up the already dazed enemy combatant and slam him down onto the simple wooden table sitting in the middle of the room with enough weight and force to break it in half as the hapless man now lays incapacitated in the table's wreckage on the floor.

With the two lackeys who never stood a chance now having been swiftly taken care of, the two men on a mission take a moment to regroup in the break room. The muffled sounds of frantic footsteps can be heard through the ceiling on the floor up above, the stairway to access it only located a few feet away in the corner of the lounge.

"So you think he knows we're here for him?" Reiner asks with a sarcastic smirk as he meets the eyes of his slightly taller comrade, Bertolt merely letting out a light sigh while glancing back at the ruins of the table and the battered body of the man he just sent careening through it. Bertolt wasn't a violent person by nature – in fact, most people who know him well would describe him as rather gentle and mild-mannered – but when his job called for him to utilize his raw strength and fighting prowess he knew it was necessary to use it. Often times he felt bad about it afterwards in cases where his opponent was clearly outmatched, as was the case this time.

"He's probably just waiting for us to come up there with a gun locked on the top of the stairs. There's no way we can just waltz on up now." Bertolt said with a bit of dismay while Reiner gave a nod of agreement. They both knew that the longer they had to stick around here, the greater the chance they'd be around if someone were to happen on the scene and call the police. Considering that Fixers and cops aren't usually on good relations with one another, this was a scenario the two of them hoped to avoid.

"You're probably right. Luckily, I happened to come prepared for a situation such as this." Reiner replies as he reaches inside of his olive-green cargo jacket and pulls out a small, black, cylindrical device with a pin hooked to the top. "Behold." He adds with a mocking sense of wonder as he pulls the pin from the grenade and tosses it up the staircase, Bertolt already turning away in a crouch and covering his ears as Reiner joins him. Seconds later there's a blinding burst of light and a horrible high-pitched screeching fills the air as the flashbang goes off, giving the two Fixers the cue to rush up the steps to capitalize on the temporary disarray.

Surely enough their assumption was correct that their target had been planning to ambush them at the top of the steps, as lying on the floor nearby the disheveled older gentleman is a simple Makarov pistol that the stun grenade effectively disarmed him of. Given the way he's sprawled out on his stomach facing away from the steps, it seems like he was attempting to run away but was unable to escape the blast radius in time before it detonated. Now momentarily blinded and disoriented, it's an easy task for his assailants to lift him up off the floor and drag him back into his office nearby, only to shove him back down onto the carpet once they have him where they want him.

"Mauricio Rojas…there's a pretty little price on your head. Did you know that?" Reiner asks the middle-aged Latin man with a small chuckle of satisfaction knowing that his contract is about to be completed one way or another. The job was stated very clearly: either get back the money owed to the crime boss by Rojas, or make him pay with his blood instead. He and Bertolt both noticed the safe sitting in the corner of the office when they walked in, and it only takes a silent nod shared between the two before the dark-haired half of the duo begins rummaging through the large chestnut desk in the room looking to find a code.

"Please…don't waste your time wrecking my office. Ugh…I'm sure you've already done…quite a number downstairs." Rojas says through his groans of soreness and discombobulation, waving his hand dismissively at the two boys while propping himself up on one elbow. "Toselli sent you…if he wants his money that badly then he can take it. In the safe…the code is 4127. There's enough in there to pay him back with interest…just take it." He finishes with a deflated sigh that acknowledges a few thousands of dollars isn't worth this much trouble on his end. In all honesty it isn't enough of an amount to make a difference on Don Toselli's end either, but for him it's about making a statement that nobody is going to screw him over.

Reiner continues to stand watch over Rojas who continues to grumble under his breath about all the damage he's going to have to get repaired down in his shop, while Bertolt quickly trots over to the safe and gets down on a knee to input the code. There's a beep as each number is pressed, and a string of chirps followed by the sound of the locks disengaging once it's been fully entered. Dutifully taking out the individual stacks of money and counting over it, Bertolt smiles as he determines this will be plenty and that this mission can be finished without any casualties.

"There's a little over $34,000 in here. I think that will be plenty to pay off your debt." Bertolt states approvingly, prompting Reiner to toss him a conveniently nearby tote bag for the money to be deposited into. It doesn't take more than a handful of seconds for all of it to be transferred from the safe to the bag, and after a brief goodbye out of courtesy to Rojas, the two best friends make their way back out of the store the same way they came in, passing by the two still unconscious henchmen serving under Rojas as they leave.

"Woo! Nothing better than the feeling of a job well done! Now all that's left to do is drop off the cash and then we get paid!" Reiner exclaims as he smacks his hands together victoriously while he and Bertolt cross the street again and return to their SUV still parked next to the opposite curb. The brown-haired boy hands the bag off to his blonde companion as they reach their vehicle – a sleek, black Cadillac Escalade less than a year old – so that Bertolt can drive this time while Reiner rides shotgun.

It's only after a couple of minutes on the road that Reiner's phone begins to ring, prompting Bertolt to look over at him incredulously while his muscular passenger fishes it out from his pants pocket.

"Did you have that thing on the whole time?!" he asks dumbfounded by the idea that Reiner's phone could have gone off at any moment while they were in the middle of their job, receiving his answer only from the nervous chuckle and shrug Reiner gives in response as he looks at the name spelt out across the screen to identify who it is that's calling; prompting him to answer it.

"Annie, perfect timing. Bert and I just finished working for the day. What's up?" he asks to the small blonde on the other end of the line with a satisfied grin on his face while Bertolt merely shakes his head in disbelief. Annie was a former teammate of theirs as a fellow member of the Jericho Syndicate a few years ago, and the duo had maintained a good relationship with her after its disintegration. They hadn't formally worked together on any contracts since then, but it wasn't uncommon for one of them to call the other to ask for advice on how to handle a job; though it was almost always Reiner or Bertolt calling Annie. It wasn't unusual for her to call them for non-work-related topics of conversation, but Annie preferred to handle her business primarily on her own.

"More than you could imagine. I don't have the time or the details to get into it all right now, but I need you to help me out." Comes Annie's reply, taking Reiner by surprise as he wasn't expecting a call for assistance to be what awaited him when he answered his phone.

"Uhh sure Annie, of course. We'll do whatever we can to help out. What exactly do you need?" Reiner asks a bit uncertainly, his words catching Bertolt's attention as he looks over quizzically while stopped at a red light, wondering just as much as Reiner now what it is that Annie needed aid with.

"I've recently had some very crucial information fall into my hands, literally. I have a flash drive with files on it that need to be decrypted. This isn't any ordinary work either; the guy who encrypted these files in the first place did it so nobody would be able to unlock it except for him." Annie explains as she leans against the wall outside of a multi-story building on a street corner, her icy blue eyes glancing furtively at the people as they pass her by and her fingers fiddling with the aforementioned flash drive that still sits tucked inside the pocket of her oversized jacket. "I possess neither the talent nor the patience to decode them myself, and I don't intend to pay any grey hat an exorbitant sum to do so either. Besides, if the information on here turns out to be what I think is on here, I don't want it to be seen by any eyes I don't know." Annie continues as she fills in the boys on her dilemma, already knowing how she intends to resolve it though and simply setting things up for her friends to be aware of the situation; at least as much as they need to be. Until she can confirm for herself whether or not Eren is still alive, she plans on telling only the necessary parties about it.

"Right, well, I get what you're saying and all Annie, but if you're looking for hackers you're searching in the wrong place. Bert and I are all brawn and no brain over here." Reiner replies jokingly though admittedly very intrigued by what Annie is telling him. Whatever is on that flash drive must be pretty damn important for her to not want anybody else seeing it and to cause her to go such rare measures as calling upon somebody else for help. Meanwhile, Bertolt mutters a "Speak for yourself" playfully under his breath at Reiner's comment about them lacking intelligence, earning him a punch to the arm in kind that perhaps proves his point since that might not be the wisest thing to do to somebody operating a motor vehicle.

"Trust me; nobody is mistaking either of you two for code breakers anytime soon. I know that neither of you have the skills to decrypt this either, but you do know somebody who can." Annie responds, briefly pausing as she shifts her weight onto her opposite foot. "I need you to tell me where I can find Arlert."

"Armin? Well…I guess if you need a hacker you aren't going to find many people better suited to the job." Reiner says scratching the back of his head a bit as he's still trying to make heads or tails of all this. He's fairly sure that Annie and Armin haven't had any contact with each other in several years; not since they all worked together in the same unit. Even then the two short blondes hardly had the best of relationships. Reiner and Bertolt however had maintained a friendly relationship over that same time with the prodigal genius, providing Annie with the window she needed to reach him. Exchanging a glance with Bertolt, who is doing his best to piece together the ongoing conversation through his companion's words only, Reiner made up his mind. "I can't give you an exact location on where he is – trust me, I would if I had one – but as far as I know he's been saddled up in Trost for a while now."

"Thank you Reiner. Once I figure out more about what's going on, I'll make sure to fill you in. Until then I have to keep things close to the vest. I'll talk to you again soon." Annie promptly tells her helpful friend and former squadmate before hanging up her phone without allowing Reiner to inquire any further.

* * *

Two days later, Annie's plane was touching down on the runway outside of Trost International Airport; the sun still rising in the sky during these morning hours over the shining metropolis of a city that Armin Arlert was apparently calling home these days. She wasn't surprised in the least to learn that this is where'd he been conducting his business from; Trost is the nation's leading hub in banking, commerce, and economics – it's a veritable hacker's paradise. For a Fixer with the technical prowess of someone like Armin, a fortune could easily be made here.

Annie had called in some favors in advance with some contacts in the city who owed her, and she had managed to get a relatively narrow idea of where she could find Armin somewhere in these sprawling streets and towering skyscrapers. Considering his résumé and skillset, it wasn't exactly difficult for him to find contracts. She had thought about getting another hacker in the city to try to trace him for her, but she knew that Armin was too good to be tracked down by any run-of-the-mill Fixer. It would take someone almost as good as him to even think about breaking through his security, and Annie wasn't about to spend thousands of dollars just for a simple trace.

After getting a rental car from the airport and spending nearly an hour navigating the streets and traffic of Trost, she had arrived at the general vicinity in which she hoped she could find the genius she was looking for. The diminutive yet intimidating blonde began to wander around, not knowing exactly what she was looking for but simply trying to scan for anything that she could classify as a lead. She had only been performing her undeveloped search for a few minutes when she received a call from an anonymous phone number. It was common for clients to keep their numbers blocked when attempting to contact a Fixer, so Annie thought nothing of it when she flicked the green icon on the screen to answer it.

"Hello?"

"If you want to talk, meet me in the parking garage the next block over. Silver van; second level."

That was all that the unmistakable voice said before Annie heard a beep and the line went dead just as quickly as it had come alive. She stood there in place on the sidewalk a bit stunned as she stared at her phone, putting it back into the pocket of her jeans after a couple of seconds once she had finished processing what had just occurred. That was most definitely Armin who had called her, but how he had gotten her phone number and how he even knew where she was? Those were things she was still attempting to figure out. She'd have to get those answers later though; Armin knew she had a reason for being here and he'd just invited her to speak with him about it. Not knowing how long offer would stand, she wasted no further time progressing towards the location she had just been given by Armin Arlert himself.

"The server room is just up ahead on your right. Plug me in once you get inside and I can take things from there." Armin instructed through his headset as he sat in front of a bank of computers and monitors constituting his mobile command center, located in the back of a windowless silver van. He leaned over to take a sip from a bottle of root beer as his large blue eyes flit back and forth across the numerous security camera feeds currently displayed upon the three monitors surrounding him.

Today the name of the game was corporate espionage, and it was a simple enough job. He'd been hired along with his partner to break into the system of a rival corporation and delete all the research that they had been doing on a prototype piece of technology; a loss that would set them back by almost a year and would allow the company that gave him a contract to prosper instead. The first part of Armin's job was to guide his partner through the headquarter building and into the server room while avoiding security, using the live camera feeds at his disposal which were quite simple to hack into.

The other part of the job was just about to begin, as his partner had successfully infiltrated the server room at last and the blonde cyber-genius could watch as he plugged him into the network. Once his link had been established, his eyes lit up and he began to go to work; his fingers scrambling across the keyboard while his eyes skimmed through lines upon lines of code, every keystroke precise as it needed to be for him to hack through all the security layers impeding his mission. Fortunately, while this corporation was clearly ready to defend itself from cyber-attack, they didn't seem to actually be anticipating one. It didn't take Armin much longer than a couple of minutes to disable all of the countermeasures in his way, subsequently gaining access to all of the information he needed and then some.

A small grin curled upon his lips as he swiftly found what he was looking for and began the process of eradicating all of the necessary files; in the meantime browsing through some other sensitive areas in the network to do a little bit of personal snooping while he waited. Whenever he performed a hit on a major figure or corporation like this one, he always liked to see if he couldn't uncover anything incriminating or scandalous that he could put into his back pocket. Then in the future he could anonymously inform his targets of what he knew; using that acquired blackmail as an easy method of collecting cash on his downtime.

A familiar tone rang through his headset to notify him that the job was complete and that all the files had been deleted, giving him the cue to remove himself from the system and erase all traces of him ever being there on his way out. After he was certain that he'd covered up his tracks sufficiently, he began powering down his own hardware.

"All clear on my end. There's an auxiliary stairwell down the hall on your right after you exit the server room. You should be able to take that all the way back down to an exit around the back of the building. Meet up with you back at the garage." Armin said through his headset to his partner still inside the building before signing off, removing the wireless device, and finishing off the remainder of his beverage. He tossed the emptied can into a trash can he kept in the corner as he stood up and stretched out his legs and back, breathing out in relief once he had finished and allowing him to hop out of the back doors of the van.

Walking around to the driver's side door, he spotted the figure approaching in her white jacket and dark blue jeans; her gray boots softly plodding along the concrete floor of the parking garage and echoing off the walls and pillars nearby.

"You're right on time. Hop in the other seat, we've got to make a quick drive." Armin called out in a friendly manner to Annie, who was still very confused about most of the aspects of this situation. She wasn't in much of a position to ask questions just yet though, so she nodded and followed Armin into the van; pulling open the passenger door just as he started the engine up and slamming it shut as he began to pull out.

Her icy blue eyes glanced over at Armin as he drove his way out of the parking garage; analyzing him intently. He hadn't changed much since she last saw him in all honesty. He was maybe another inch or two taller, but then again so was she, so it was hard to tell exactly. Either way they were both still very much on the short end of the spectrum, so any change in height wasn't really that significant. Her body still appeared to be much more hardened and toned than his, though Armin was still quite thin and appealing in a cute way – if that was what you were into. His dress was simple; a dark-gray t-shirt and accompanying pair of pants just a couple shades lighter than his shirt.

"So…I heard you have something you need to bring to my attention." Armin suddenly piped up to break the silence that had been sitting between the two of them for the past couple of minutes. It wasn't lost on Annie that his words didn't carry the inflection of a question and were instead stated as fact, the small smile he was showing all but confirming that for her.

"And where exactly did you hear that?" Annie replied, not about to give up the goose so easily and at least not without attempting to get some clarity on how Armin came to be expecting her.

"Well," began Armin's answer as he pondered over how to say what he wanted, "Let's just say that you and I have a mutual friend who doesn't do very well with secrets." He finished with a chuckle as Annie let out a small sigh of derision. She was going to have to thank Reiner later for spilling the beans about her arrival in Trost. "After that, it wasn't too hard to set up an alert once you showed up on a flight registry that would let me know when you'd be getting here. Then I just waited a little bit after you landed to check in on where you were. Lucky for both of us that you happened to be so close by."

"And how did you know where I was anyway?"

"You have a smartphone, don't you? As long as you've got the ability, it isn't that difficult to hack into the GPS function on it and keep tabs on whoever you want."

"Hmm. I'll need to remember to get that disabled then."

"Maybe I can help you with that too once I get done with whatever you have that's so important you had to come to me with it."

Armin shot Annie a knowing smile after that, not failing to notice how she had attempted to avoid directly answering him when he brought up that he knew his gruff former teammate had some work for him. Annie elected to remain silent while Armin reached up and pressed a button on a small device attached to the sun visor, causing the garage door to their left to begin rising up so that Armin could turn and drive the van inside. The door began to close behind them with another press of the button after they had parked inside; the engine shutting off with a turn of the ignition so that the two small blondes could exit the vehicle.

"I have sensitive information on a flash drive that's protected with an encryption. All I need you to do is figure out a way to get it unencrypted. It's way over my head and the things that might be on there aren't something I'm willing to let a stranger's eyes observe." Annie says out of the blue, divulging the details of why she traveled all the way out here and taking Armin a bit by surprise as he walks over to flick on the lights in the garage. The garage itself is rather ordinary on the inside, even if the van currently being kept within it most certainly isn't. There's nothing out of the ordinary on display that would give away that there's more going on here than meets the eye.

"Sounds like it's pretty juicy information then, especially if you felt the need to come all the way out here just to enlist my assistance in obtaining it. Of course, I'd be happy to help you out Annie…just so long as you're willing to talk about a proper fee." Armin replies with a grin as he walks back over, voicing his willingness to provide Annie with his exquisite services as long as she's willing to fairly compensate him for it.

"I think you'll be willing to waive your fee in this instance – once you know what it is you'll be working on." Annie rebuts confidently as she pulls the flash drive in question out from the pocket of her jacket and holds it up in between her thumb and one of her small fingers. "Eren might be alive."

The resounding bombshell that Annie just dropped hangs heavily in the air as Armin's jaw seems to almost unhinge from dropping so much in shock. His bright, blue eyes widen to further express this disbelief, and he's left at a loss for words as he tries to formulate what to say in response. After all, what's the appropriate follow-up to learning that after three years of believing he was dead, the best friend that you ever had might be alive after all?

Armin is spared having to speak next when the back door to the garage opens up unexpectedly, and in walks a man with light grayish-brown hair who looks incredibly perplexed at seeing an interloper present at the garage.

"Armin…who the hell is this?" he asks glancing back and forth between the still stunned hacker and the unknown blonde girl standing across from him.

"Uhh…sorry, this is Annie. She's an old friend of mine. Annie, this is Daz. He's been my partner as of late. He does the infiltrating in the field while I take care of the technical stuff." Armin answers to fill both of his current companions in on the situation, as Annie was caught just as off-guard as Daz was when he entered the garage; although she did a much better job of keeping her cool. Years of practice had honed her ability to make it seem as if she was emotionless.

"Nice to meet you Daz. I'm taking your partner from you." Annie says to the rather anxious looking newcomer to the conversation, her stoic facial expression and intimidating presence (in spite of her small stature) not doing much to help the situation. Predictably, Daz doesn't react well to hearing the news that he's about to have his partner in crime snatched up by some girl he's never met before.

"W-what?! You can't do that! That isn't even your decision to make! A-Armin! Tell her to get the fuck out of here!" Daz exclaims in resistance to these developments, now turning to Armin in the hopes that he'll rebuff Annie as well and send her on her way.

"Daz, listen, I know this is all a bit alarming to you, but you have to understand—"

"I'm sorry to inform you that this isn't up for debate. Armin is joining me and you're just going to have to find someone else to do the work that you're incapable of doing yourself." Annie says tersely, cutting Armin off as he attempts to explain the situation and calm Daz down, her patience being strained at the moment. She'd be damned if she was going to let this kid try to stand in the way of her getting one step closer to tracking down Eren.

"I…I'd like to see you try! You think I'm just going to let you come in here, take my hacker from me, and tell me to just deal with it?! How about I give you something to deal with instead?!" Daz shouts, not willing to simply step aside and planning to enforce his will upon Annie in order to let her know just how mistaken she is.

Moving aggressively towards her, he gets his fists balled up and raised for a fight while Annie simply stands in place watching him with unimpressed, venomous eyes. It wouldn't take very much for her to dismantle her hapless attacker, but she did not wish to waste neither the time nor the effort that it would require to do so. Instead, she calmly decides to reach inside of her jacket and pull out her favored .357 long-nose revolver; taking aim and firing off one round straight into Daz's left kneecap before he even has the chance to think about getting out of her line of fire.

"What did you do that for?! Are you out of your mind?!" Armin exclaims in incredulity as Daz crumples to the floor screaming in agony, clutching at his injured knee and trying to suppress the bleeding caused by the bullet now lodged inside of it. With a shrug, Annie puts her magnum away before responding.

"He was going to attack me. I felt that I was in significant danger, so I defended myself." She says matter-of-factly, not even bothering to make her words sound like a believable excuse. The shrug that she adds in response to Armin's continued glare doesn't help matters much either. It doesn't take long for her to tire of Daz and his wailing, which prompts her to walk over to where he lays in the fetal position in order to silence him with a swift boot to the temple which knocks him unconscious.

"We should get moving. The sooner we get back to Stohess, the sooner we can start working on where to find Eren." Annie says as she tucks her revolver back into her jacket, turning her attention back to the hacker with the suggestion that they leave together as soon as possible.

"Why do we even have to go to Stohess? Why can't you just stay here for a day or two and let me work on it with all my own equipment?" Armin asks while trying not to focus on the unconscious heap that he supposes he can now call his ex-partner. He was pretty sure that the gunshot wound wasn't going to be anywhere close to fatal, but Daz was still going to be in for a world of pain once he woke up.

"Are you telling me that once you get access to the information on here, including Eren's location, you aren't going to want come with me to see if he's there?" Annie rebuts, postulating a very valid point that hadn't occurred to Armin yet. He realized that she was right though; no matter how slim that chance may actually be of Eren still being alive, he knew that he was going to be there to find out for himself.

"Before we go…there's one thing that I want to ask you." Armin tells Annie, who looks over at him expectantly while awaiting his question. "What do you plan on doing once we find him?" He asks with some sternness to his otherwise youthful features, the inquiry catching Annie off-guard. Of course though, she realized, that Armin would be as protective of Eren as all but one other person on the planet. She understood his concern as well; it wasn't a secret that she and Eren had a relationship that could have been classified as tumultuous at times. The two of them had briefly attempted a romantic partnership, but it didn't last very long after Eren decided that their desires for each other weren't worth the friction and other problems it could cause within the group. He took his responsibilities as their leader very seriously, and ultimately he was unable to allow his heart to interfere in his decisions to such an extent.

These were the reasons that Eren had given her at least. Annie was less than convinced. She was certain that Mikasa had been in Eren's ear, and that she was the one who convinced him to cut things off with her so abruptly. As his adoptive sister, Mikasa was Eren's closest friend and confidant, and she held an enormous amount of influence over him. Of course, it also didn't help Annie's cause that what was viewed as over-protectiveness by others was so clearly seen by the spurned blonde as unadulterated lust. She'd never been the best of friends with Mikasa, so it was no wonder that the raven-haired girl was none too pleased when her beloved brother entered into a relationship with Annie.

"I suppose I'll ask him where he's been for the last three years. That sounds like a good place to start." Annie ends up replying after pondering on it within her head. Honestly, she hadn't exactly thought that far ahead yet. The shock of learning that Eren could very well be alive and the subsequent stress of trying to find him had left little time for her to actually think about what might happen when – if – they were to meet again. Provided that the opportunity did arise for that to occur however, Annie was certain of this much: she wasn't going to let him slip through her fingers again.


	3. Chasing Ghosts

"Did you get the documents I asked for on the McGlockton case?"

The sound of her partner's voice was lost on her as she continued to stare down at the piece of paper lying atop her desk. It was as if a force field had been erected in a small radius around her, stifling anything outside of it from breaking her concentration. The distant ringing of a phone, the clicking of fingers upon keyboards, and of course her partner's inquiry were all rendered nearly mute as she dedicated all of her focus to the paper which currently has her captivated. The absent-minded chewing on the bottom of her pen was really the only clear evidence to anybody else that she hadn't fallen into some sort of waking coma. It was only once a hand suddenly slapped down over top of the sheet of paper that she was startled out of her trance.

"Sasha! God you've been staring at that thing for the last ten minutes without even doing anything! Just give up on it already!" Jean exclaims in frustrated exasperation, earning a frown from Sasha in response. As much as she hated to admit it, perhaps Sudoku puzzles were not for her. She was never great with numbers anyway, which is why she wanted to test herself with this.

"You know, I don't tell you what to do with your free time." Sasha retorts as she puts her pen down and crumples up the victorious puzzle in order to toss it into the small trash bin sitting at the side of the desk they share.

"This isn't 'free time' Sasha; lunch break was over twenty minutes ago. Now it's time to get back to work and help me figure out this McGlockton case." Jean grumbles back to her as he returns his attention to his computer, reviewing the digital copy of the case file for what felt to him like the hundredth time. Out of the corner of his eye he catches his auburn-haired partner sticking her tongue out at him. He says nothing, and merely sighs.

On the whole, Jean enjoyed working alongside Sasha; but that didn't mean that there weren't moments where she made him want to literally crush his own head like a grapefruit. More often than not though, Jean just considered the two of them to be quite fortunate to even have jobs like theirs. After the dissolution of the Jericho Syndicate, everybody pretty much split up and went their separate ways. Some people stayed together, such as Reiner and Bertolt whom he knew had gone to work together in Stohess after things went belly up. He and Sasha decided to stick with one another as well, but ultimately they chose to give up the Fixer life and go straight.

About a couple of weeks after the group officially disbanded, the two of them got on a plane and flew out to the capital city of Mitras. It was there where the national headquarters was located for the Bureau of Internal Security and Intelligence, often simply known as the BISI. It was this organization's duty to sniff out and extinguish any threats to national security within the country's own borders; Fixer groups generally fell into this category due to being classified as vigilantes, whether they truly posed any terroristic threat or not. As members of the notorious yet defunct Jericho Syndicate, Jean Kirstein and Sasha Braus were prominently featured on the BISI's Most Wanted list. Needless to say, there were quite a few people shocked when the two of them came strolling in through the front doors of their national headquarters.

After being arrested (a formality really since Jean and Sasha willingly went along with everything they were asked to do by the BISI officials), they were detained within the building for the next three days as high value individuals who were not permitted to leave the premises and had to be monitored by two agents at all times. They were prisoners in every sense except for the actual word. Over this period of time they were subjected to a battery of interrogation and questioning, during which Jean and Sasha repeatedly made it clear that they no longer had the desire to live on the wrong side of the law, and wished to serve the BISI to enforce and uphold the law instead.

It took quite a bit of convincing, and as uncertain as the top officials were who had been assigned to figure out what to do with them, they came to the conclusion that their skills were far too valuable and exemplary to not take a chance on. After all, they don't just put any two-bit Fixer on a Most Wanted list now, do they? Jean Kirstein and Sasha Braus were two of the best in the world at what they did, and they would be outstanding assets to have working in the field. So, they were pardoned for all past transgressions, had their files shredded, and were fast-tracked through the BISI Academy where the only needed to train for six months rather than the mandatory three years that all other aspiring agents had to gruel through. As one might expect, they passed every test with flying colors.

"Fine, but don't say that I never warned you that all work and no play makes Jean a dull boy." Sasha teasingly remarks as she stands up from her chair and it wheels back slightly across the carpeted floor of their cubicle section within the main floor where all BISI field agent offices are located. As she walks over towards the nearby file cabinet, Jean can't help but let his gaze stray from his computer monitor in order to linger upon his rather cute partner. As much as he might deny it if pressed, Jean secretly found Sasha to be a rather stunning young woman. Of course, romantic relationships were disallowed between co-workers at the Bureau, but that didn't mean that Jean couldn't take a few seconds on the sly to admire how lovely Sasha's long and slender legs looked today underneath the dark nylon stockings she had on; further accentuated by her modest, black heels and her charcoal, pinstripe skirt.

Jean made sure to fix his eyes back on the screen once Sasha pushed the cabinet drawer back shut with a manila folder in her hand; the last thing he needs being to get caught red-handed by his partner and made to endure relentless teasing about it for the rest of his life.

"Here ya go, but I don't know what you think you're going to find in there. You've already barely slept any for the last two days going over this stuff, looking for a lead that isn't there." Sasha says as she hands over the bundle of documents to Jean, who has admittedly been working tirelessly as of late in an effort to make some progress on their current case; one which they've ended up hitting a wall on. Assigned to the Recon Corps division of the BISI, they were primarily tasked with tracking and arresting notorious Fixers from across the country. It was seen as a more than logical choice to assign them there considering their previous line of work.

"There's gotta be something there; something that we're missing or in some place that we haven't thought to examine more closely. I mean for God's sake, this guy is a nobody compared to what we were in our heyday. We shouldn't be struggling this much to track him down." Jean replies in a disgruntled huff as he flips open the folder yet again to pore over its contents.

"Yeah well in 'our heyday' we didn't exactly spend a lot of time sitting behind a desk doing paperwork either. We need to get back out in the field and try to find a new lead that way. That's our environment, not being stuck here trying to trace a paper trail." Sasha retorts back, never having particularly enjoyed the time on the job spent in the office. Everything about it felt far too restrained for someone as carefree as her; the cubicle, the attire, and the rigid protocols were all things she would be happy to do without.

Jean prepared to open his mouth to speak, but he was beat to the punch before he could get a word out by the ringing of the phone sitting towards the edge of the desk. He shot a glance at Sasha to make sure she knew this conversation wasn't over, and was met in kind with a pair of caramel brown eyes playfully rolling back at him. This would have likely irritated him more if he didn't find her eyes to be so intoxicating.

"Special Agents Kirstein and Braus; Kirstein speaking." Jean announced as he answered the phone, this new occupation of his attention allowing Sasha the opportunity to begin balancing a pen upon her fingertip.

"Agent Kirstein, this is Director Jinn. I just recently received word of an urgent assignment that needs the attention of you and your partner."

"Sir? We're currently occupied with the McGlockton case right now. Are you sure that it's necessary for us to take this assignment?" Jean replies a bit uncertainly and with the most respect possible considering that it's his boss and the man in charge of the Recon Corps, Eld Jinn, on the other end of the line.

"I am. You're the two best field operatives that I have. Schultz and his team just cleared their case so I'll hand McGlockton over to them." Eld reaffirms from his own office upstairs while Jean suppresses a small sigh.

"Very well then sir. What's our new assignment?" Jean asks, causing Sasha to pause her little game as she overhears this and feels a small swell of excitement over the prospect of getting back out in the field.

"One of our informants in Stohess just relayed word to us about something that could potentially be quite big. He's had intermittent contact with a very high value Fixer operating within the city for the last eighteen months; working as an informant. His intel has been good so far, and now he's telling us that our target is going to be meeting someone at a specified location sometime relatively soon; possibly another wanted Fixer. You and Agent Braus are going to head out to Stohess to stake out the location and apprehend the targets if and when possible. Understood?" Eld explains as he lays out the structure and objectives of this mission to one of his top two agents on who is listening intently to every word.

"Yes sir, understood. We'll take a flight to Stohess as soon as possible." Jean answers as he already begins re-gathering all of the papers and documents that he had just gotten out to now put them back into the manila folder.

"Very good; I'll make sure all the relevant information you'll need gets digitally forwarded to you. As I said before, you two are my best. I'm sure that this mission is safe in your hands." Eld says to restate his confidence in the abilities of both Jean and Sasha, who certainly have earned their place as top agents in the Recon Corps due to their sky-high success rate.

"Of course sir. We won't let you down. May I just ask; who exactly is it that we're supposed to be hunting down?" Jean asks with a natural curiosity, causing Director Jinn to hesitate for a moment as he hoped he wouldn't have to be the one to break the news to them. Ordinarily he wouldn't assign agents to a case where they may have a preexisting relationship, but this was perhaps the most high-value Fixer operating out of Stohess and he needed Jean and Sasha's talents and abilities to ensure the greatest odds for a successful arrest.

"…Annie Leonhart."

* * *

Annie and Armin both sat in silence as they worked. After spending the last three years living by herself in a modest but cozy condominium, she'd grown to appreciate the quiet. Introversion had always been what she preferred, so it wasn't exactly difficult for her to revert back to being by herself after working within the Jericho Syndicate with everyone else for so long. She'd still make time to meet up with Reiner and Bertolt once every week or two, but by and large Annie would much rather spend her downtime on her own.

At the moment Armin was diligently working on decrypting the flash drive that could very well contain Eren's location, while Annie was cleaning her revolver in what was mostly an effort to take her mind off of all the stress that was bombarding her. She hadn't slept well since learning from Pockets a few days earlier that Eren was still alive, and she was desperate to achieve some sort of resolution to this whole situation as soon as possible. This was one of the things that Annie normally did when she needed to relax, and so far it was achieving greater success than any other method had thus far.

She sat back in a plain, wooden chair with her feet up on top of a sturdy birch wood desk that was pressed up against one of the walls of her bedroom. Her singular twin bed was positioned against the opposite wall length-wise, and Armin sat at a larger oak desk pressed against the wall which was connected to both the wall where Annie's bed was, and the one near which the small blonde was currently located. His fingertips dancing across the keyboard provided the sound which filled the otherwise noiseless room while Annie pushed a long bore brush in and out of the long-nosed barrel of her revolver.

"You know, if this all turns out to be for real, at some point we're going to have to tell Mikasa about this." Armin suddenly says as he takes a pause from his work and spins his chair around to look back at Annie, who has stopped in her tracks upon hearing this – so much for using this time to calm her nerves. After taking a second to think through what to say in response, she slowly pulls the brush out from the barrel and places it down on top of the desk; only to pick up a toothbrush and dip it lightly in a cleaning solvent so that she can use it around the muzzle.

"I suppose. It's not really something that's crossed my mind." Annie lies, obviously having considered this inevitability already on her own but hoping that it could at least be pushed to the side until she actually found out for sure whether or not Eren was still alive.

"Don't play dumb with me Annie. You're not very good at it." Armin remarks with a slight smirk curling at the corners of his lips, mostly undaunted by the pair of icy blue eyes glowering back at him. Annie had noticed a fair bit of difference in Armin since the last time that they'd seen each other; one of those differences being that his tongue had gotten a lot sharper. Perhaps no longer being trapped within the looming shadows of Eren and Mikasa had enabled him to emerge as more of a stronger personality. Still, there was more to it than just that. Physically there were differences as well; subtle as they were to detect. He was still rather short, but he was no longer miniscule as a presence. Annie had learned a long time ago how to command an intimidating presence despite being barely more than five-feet tall, and while Armin wasn't exactly intimidating there was an unmistakable confidence to the way he carried himself.

"I'm assuming that you know how to get in touch with her?" Annie asks after a light sigh, knowing now that this conversation cannot be avoided. She and Mikasa rarely spoke to one another even when they were comrades, and she never figured that the two of them would need to be in contact again once the Syndicate dissolved. If Armin didn't have a way to reach her, Annie wasn't looking forward to the calls she'd have to make in order to track her down.

"I do. I won't call her though until we know for sure that Eren is still out there. No need to get her hopes up and then end up just chasing ghosts." Armin responds as Annie nods in agreement, the hacker making this decision with Annie's benefit also in mind as it's not been too terribly difficult to notice the toll that this has taken on her. Whilst sleeping on the couch in the condo's living room with Annie's bedroom adjacent and the door cracked open, he could hear the rasping of her mattress as she tossed and turned in bed struggling to sleep. He never really realized up until now that Eren had meant so much to the typically ice-cold blonde who'd always seemed to have trained herself to resist making strong attachments to people. Obviously he meant something to her considering that they were briefly a romantic pairing, but the depths of her feelings for his best friend were lost on Armin.

"Is she still…on the job?" Annie asks after wondering what the best way to phrase the question would be. Clearly she could have done a bit better as Armin gives her a quizzical look and a slight nod of the head before grasping what she was asking.

"Oh, yeah; she's still in the fixing business. She's actually leading a small group of her own nowadays; a few teens I think. Training them and developing their skills and all that. They move around though, not really operating out of any one area for too long. Makes you harder to track, but harder to get steady work too. Fortunately the name 'Mikasa Ackerman' still carries a lot of weight. Even if she is keeping a lower profile these days, people haven't forgotten how talented she is." Armin answers to fill Annie in on what her rival has been up to over the last couple of years. It didn't come as a surprise to Annie that Mikasa had ended up in a leadership role of her own. She wasn't one of the ones to make a bid for the Maven role that Eren had vacated upon his supposed death, too distraught with mourning grief to care, but Annie saw the requisites for leadership in her. Everybody in the Syndicate trusted and respected her – Annie included among them. She didn't have to like Mikasa to acknowledge how formidable she was. Sometimes when she let her mind wander back to those days, she wondered if under different circumstances Mikasa could have held them together.

It was at this point that the chirping alarm on Annie's phone began to go off, prompting her to fish it out from her pocket and take a look at the now lit screen. With a swipe of her thumb the alarm ceased, and one more swipe locked the screen back up before the phone was placed right back into the side pocket of Annie's jeans where it'd just come out of.

"I have something I need to take care of. I'll be back later tonight." Annie stated as she placed her revolver down on top of her desk and stood up from her chair, taking Armin by surprise at her sudden departure.

"You're leaving? Is this anything I should be worried about?" He asks curiously from his own more comfortable desk chair while watching Annie put her cleaning supplies and utensils back into one of the drawers of the smaller birch desk, then proceeding to open up a different drawer and retrieve a green-and-gold box containing rounds for her .357 magnum.

"No. I just have to meet somebody. Not related to Eren in any way." Annie replies calmly while carefully picking out each bullet from the box in between her tiny fingers and loading them into the cylinder of her revolver. Once she had finished loading it she tucked it into the holster she kept at her hip, half of it concealed within her pants and the other half concealed underneath the dark blue jacket she wore which reached down to her thighs; left unbuttoned and with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows like she always wore them.

"Expecting a problem?" Armin asks with a minor amount of sarcasm after observing Annie's process of making sure she's armed, part of him wondering if she's leaving to go take on a job right now. It is almost ten o'clock after all, not exactly a common time for innocuous meetings.

"It never hurts to make sure you're prepared if one arises." Annie responds, a creed she lives by as she almost never leaves her apartment without her gun loaded. "But no, I'm not anticipating one tonight." She adds before looking over towards Armin and receiving a nod from him.

"Then hopefully there won't be one. I'll keep working here while you're out. At this rate, it shouldn't actually be all that much longer before I've cracked the code." Armin informs her with a genuine smile. He's not certain if his eyes are playing tricks on him or not, but he thinks he spots a very faint one reciprocating his upon Annie's lips.

* * *

Sasha could only hear the sound of her own ragged breathing while her eyes sifted through the various shades of green that filled her sight. The night-vision scope equipped upon her sniper rifle was the only thing enabling her to see in the otherwise vast darkness that had engulfed everything around her. She couldn't get her hands to stop shaking – her finger dangerously shifting upon the trigger – and her entire body trembled involuntarily as she laid there on the cold, rusted metal.

She had been here before; too many times. She knew what was going to happen, and she knew that no matter how hard she tried there was nothing she could do to stop it from taking place. She was within her own body, yet had no control over it at the same time. She was merely just along for the ride. Tears began to well within her creamy brown eyes as the moment grew nearer. She couldn't even close them to stop herself from watching it again. This is the price she would have to pay.

"Sasha!...Sasha! Wake up!" Jean exclaimed while shaking her by the shoulder, disturbing his partner from her less-than-peaceful slumber and having to recoil back as she jolted awake into a seated position with a shrill cry of terror. The sight of the usually jubilant girl in such a state of distress rendered him speechless. Her skin had taken on a ghostly white pallor, and she appeared to be quivering uncontrollably from head to toe even with her lower half covered beneath the blanket that she had been sleeping under. Cold sweat dripped profusely from her forehead and apparently various other places as well, considering that the plain white t-shirt that she had changed into for comfort was soaked through. The same tears that she had felt only beginning to form during her nightmare were now freely flowing down her cheeks as she sat there upon the leather couch, while the BISI jet transporting them flew through the air towards Stohess.

Almost immediately Jean felt awful with himself for allowing this to happen. While Sasha was catching some shut-eye on the couch, he was a bit further back in the jet reviewing all of the intel that Director Jinn had sent to him regarding their newest assignment. He was still coming to grips with the fact that the two of them were going to have to arrest Annie, but this was their job now and it was what needed to be done. He only broke his concentration when he began to hear what sounded like whimpering coming from where Sasha was supposed to be sleeping, so naturally he wondered what was going on.

After calling out to her and receiving no response, he got up and walked over to ultimately find her in her present state of being: overcome with anguish as the result of her recurring nightmare. Jean had no idea about what the terror was that played itself out in Sasha's mind, but he blamed himself for not being closer to her when it started happening. Perhaps he could have woken her up and prevented things from getting this bad at the first signs of her beginning to show some sort of restlessness in her sleep.

"Sasha…it's alright now. You're safe. I've got you." Jean finally manages to say softly as it's all he can think to tell her at the moment, instinctively sitting down on the edge of the couch to wrap his partner in his arms in the hopes of comforting her. To his mild surprise, almost no sooner has he begun to pull her towards him does she fling herself forward and throw her own arms around him to bury her face in his chest and shoulder while sobbing heavily. It crushes Jean to see Sasha this way, never having even the slightest clue that there was something that could affect her in such an extreme manner. This isn't a situation that he particularly has experience in either, but he's not really sure he needs to do anything else right now other than return Sasha's almost desperate embrace by locking his own arms tightly around her slender, convulsing frame; ignoring the feeling of her sweat-soaked shirt pressing into him and running his fingers through her messy, reddish-brown hair that she took out of her customary ponytail to sleep, trying his best to console her.

To his credit, it seemed to be working in at least some capacity. Gradually Sasha's crying became less than borderline hysterical, reduced down to a steadier sort of weeping but still keeping her grasp around Jean as tight as it was when she initially threw herself into him. For her part, Sasha couldn't presently articulate just how grateful she was to have him there with her right now. A part of her was mortified to have him see her in this condition, but that was outweighed by the rest of her which knew how much worse off she could've become if Jean hadn't woken her up halfway through the nightmare.

It'd been a couple of months since the last time she had it, so she had been figuring it was due to come sooner or later. She'd given up trying to stop it at this point. Her initial attempts at trauma therapy helped her make progress and put significant intervals in between the occurrences of the dream as opposed to the near-nightly affliction it was originally, but it always came back. It was bad enough to go through it the first time when it actually happened, but now she was being punished for it by having to relive it over and over again every so often; the memory of what she did that night seared destructively into her brain.

"I'm sorry…I'm so sorry." Sasha squeaked out in a raspy voice without really thinking about it, her words muffled by being spoken mostly into Jean's cream-colored dress shirt that now shared a bit of the dampness from her perspiration and her tears. At this point she wasn't even entirely sure who she was apologizing to, but she felt compelled to nonetheless.

"Sasha…you don't have anything to be sorry for. You haven't done anything wrong, alright? It was just a bad dream, that's all. It happens to all of us. You're okay now though…I'm here for you." Jean replies without thinking that the apology could be intended for anybody other than him, trying to therefore reassure his partner that she has nothing to be sorry about. And while Sasha knew that it wasn't true, she still highly appreciated Jean's soothing and sturdy presence right now. Deep down, she hoped that he'd still feel the same way if he ever discovered what it was that haunted her.

* * *

Annie brushed a stray lock of her bright blonde hair out from in front of her face and tucked it back behind her ear as she strode along the sidewalk. Her destination was a few blocks away from her apartment, but she preferred to walk instead of drive to most places that were within a reasonable distance. Even at this late hour, she was unconcerned about getting potentially accosted or assaulted despite knowing that her gender and size made her an appealing target. Any bit-rate street thug or junkie who attempted to get the jump on her learned their mistake rather quickly. It had happened a handful of times in the past, but each dispute was resolved in under a minute.

The neon lighting and the stifled blare of a pounding bass through brick walls was all the notification that she needed to let her know she had arrived. Her icy blue eyes glanced up and squinted at the brightness of the glowing red letters bolted into the front of the nightclub that spelled out "ARACHNID". Unless it was for work or business, Annie would typically never be caught dead in a place like this. The agenda for tonight fell into the latter however, as there was somebody that she needed to meet and something that she needed to collect.

A line of about a dozen people or so stood waiting out in front of the club, all waiting to be allowed entry from a cordoned off area while a hulking bouncer stood guard at the front door to keep the peace. He noticed Annie as she approached and the two of them exchanged nods, this not being her first trip to this particular establishment and the security having become familiar with her relationship to the proprietor. A few of the people waiting in line let their dissatisfaction be heard as Annie was simply allowed to walk inside, but their voices were almost instantly drowned when she pushed through the two sets of double doors at either end of the small entrance hall and the cacophonous electronic music battered her senses.

Annie paused to look around and survey the floor, seeing the same mixture as she always did of people sitting in lavish booths drinking and enjoying themselves as well as the people twisting and gyrating to the rhythm of the music out on the dance floor. She had no time for either experience and instead did as she always did, heading straight through to the center of the club towards the bar to make her presence known. As she got closer she spotted the bartender, a girl about the same age as her whom she'd interacted with here before. Her hair was relatively short and somewhat shaggy; a shade of brown so fair that depending on the lighting could be mistaken for a pale blonde. The black tube top she was wearing barely reached down her torso long enough to be classified as more than a bra, leaving her trim stomach entirely exposed.

Her amber eyes seemed to take notice as Annie approached the bar, looking over in her direction and gleaming a bit while the corners of her mouth curled up into a grin. She took on an almost feline resemblance when she smiled like that; a Cheshire Cat if there ever was one.

"Ah, Annie! I was beginning to wonder when I would see you again! It's been a while, hasn't it?!" The bartender said to Annie in a near shout in order to be clearly heard over both the music and the chatter around the bar area, her smile maintaining its vibrancy as the shorter and more clothed girl reached the counter.

"I've been busy." Annie replied in a raised but less enthusiastic voice to the effervescent maiden working on the other side of the black marble bar.

"Ugh tell me about it! I'm so swamped over here! Anyways, what can I get ya?" She asks without bothering to get a glass prepared.

"I'm just here to pick up a package, Hitch." Annie responds to the catlike bartender/liaison, whose beaming smile has now evolved into a knowing smirk.

"Of course you are! Well you know the drill then! Come on, follow me!" Hitch tells Annie as she gives the signal to the girl working at the other end of the bar that she'll be stepping away for a couple of minutes, allowing her to escort Annie across the crowded floor to the back of the nightclub and through a door designated for staff only; emerging into a service stairwell leading both up to the roof and down into the basement.

"Is it really necessary for somebody to have to hold my hand every time I come through here?" Annie asks as she and Hitch start heading down the concrete steps together towards the subterranean level of the club, the thudding of her boots contrasting with the sharp clicking of Hitch's stiletto heels.

"Sorry Annie, you know the rules." Hitch replies with a bubbly giggle, "Nobody is allowed through here for a meeting without an approved escort. No exceptions, regardless of how preferred the customer is." She finishes reiterating protocol as the two of them reach the bottom of the steps and walk down a narrow, dimly lit hallway with a thick metal door at the end of it. Hitch raps her knuckles against it twice before pressing the button on the intercom installed beside the door, "You have a guest."

A few seconds pass after she releases the button and the two girls are left to stand there while awaiting an answer. Eventually it comes, in the form of a female voice that sounds a bit irritated.

"Who?" Is all that it says through the speaker, clearly trying to determine whether or not it's someone that she absolutely has to entertain at the moment.

"Miss Annie Leonhart." Hitch responds in a bit of a singsong voice, not put off in the slightest in the sharpness in her boss's tone.

"Why didn't you say so? Bring her in!" The voice beckons this time, sounding in a much more friendly mood than it was just a moment ago now that its owner knows who it is that is waiting to meet with her. A moment later, the loud sounds of the locks on the door unbolting are heard, giving Hitch permission to push it open with a slight grunt and allow Annie to walk inside.

She ventures inside of the newly unsealed office just in time to see a girl with a light brown ponytail hastily pulling a pair of small, silver, spandex shorts back up her legs, causing Annie to pause with a curious but unsurprised expression. The pretty, young, freckled girl's cheeks are flushed a deep shade of red as she glances over at Annie, this only getting an amused chuckle from the third and final girl in the room who's reclining casually in the large, black, leather chair located behind the impressive ebony desk.

"Sorry about this little interruption, Hannah. We were only just getting started too. Ah well, don't go straying too far. I'm going to expect your cute little ass right back in here once Miss Leonhart has finished her business here." She says with a broad, devilish smirk dancing across her soft, copper lips; her narrow hazel eyes lustfully following Hannah as she leaves the office to give her boss privacy, only to be greeted by Hitch's own seemingly ever-present smirk as the blonde pulls the heavy door back shut and the locks automatically click back into place. "Ah…the lioness has returned to the spider's garden. I wasn't expecting you so soon Annie." She says now leaning forward in her chair while offering with a wave of her hand for Annie to take a seat.

"Clearly. Though I am glad to see that a woman as busy as yourself still finds time to enjoy some more basic pleasures." Annie replies as she sits, with a dry sense of humor that earns a laugh from the tall, dark-haired, and olive-skinned girl on the opposite side of the sharp, black desk.

"Most of the time I'm busy it's because I'm busy with more basic pleasures. Don't tell me that you aren't just a little bit jealous? Wouldn't you love to be able to get out of the Fixer game and live a simple life of leisure; owning a nightclub and fucking beautiful girls whenever you please? Or beautiful boys. Either way, I don't judge." She retorts with a question that she knows there won't be an answer to.

"Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think you left out a very important detail in that inspiring story. I wouldn't exactly call being an international arms dealer a 'life of leisure', Ymir." Annie quickly rebuts with a thin smile of her own, her conversations with her former partner in the Jericho Syndicate always succeeding in drawing some enthusiasm out from behind her ice-cold veneer. Ymir for her part simply shrugs at the mention of her new occupation, in which she operates under the pseudonym of "Le Veuve Noire" – French for "The Black Widow." Hence the not-so-subtle name of the nightclub; almost hiding in plain sight.

"I suppose that part can be a little stressful, sure. That's why I need so much time to unwind with more…intimate activities." Ymir responds still grinning slyly as she now returns to leaning back in her chair with her hands behind her head. "But I'm sure you didn't come all the way down here to talk about my sex life; although I would be happy to share. No, I suspect you're here to pick up your order." She adds changing the subject, Annie's nod being all the answer that Ymir needs.

The brunette temptress arises from her seat and walks towards a corner of the room on the wall furthest away from her, where a leather couch and small coffee table have been set up. Annie turns to watch in her chair as Ymir stops a couple feet away from the table and squats down in order to lift up one of the large black tiles making up the floor of the office, reaching down with one arm into this revealed stash and pulling a plain-looking, navy blue backpack out from it before sealing it back up. The color of the backpack almost matches the shade of Ymir's baggy cargo pants, which go together well with the wife beater that adorns her upper body.

"This is for you. Check it if you want, you'll find that everything you asked for is in there." She tells Annie before handing it over for the much shorter blonde to take and place in her lap.

"I trust you." Annie replies simply while unzipping the backpack anyway to peek down inside of it, finding herself satisfied with the precious goods located within; eight blocks of C-4 plastic explosives and all of the equipment necessary to detonate them.

"You know, normally I don't ask questions about what any of my clients are planning to use their new toys for, but big explosions aren't your style Annie. Care to offer a little insight?" Ymir asks with a genuine curiosity regarding Annie's intentions, having long known her blonde friend to take a much more calculated and subtle approach to her lethality.

"I could bore you with the details…but if I recall you have another meeting to get to as soon as I'm gone. I wouldn't want to keep you held up." Annie answers with a sarcastic smile as she zips the bag back up, slinging the straps of it over her shoulders and standing up from her chair while Ymir smirks right back down at her.

"How very thoughtful of you. Get out of here Leonhart, and try not to be a stranger. Oh and if you ever get tired of the whole Fixer gig, I've always got a spot open for you to be my right hand." Ymir says as she walks back around to her side of the desk and presses a button next to the intercom speaker to unlock the office door.

"I appreciate the offer, but after knowing where your left hand has been I'm not all too eager to be your right." Annie ripostes teasingly as she exits, pushing the heavy door shut behind her while Ymir laughs and already makes a move for the intercom to get Hannah back downstairs, her voice disappearing once the locks reengage and Annie is left only with the sound of her footsteps echoing off the walls of the narrow basement hallway.

She emerges back into the nightclub after making her way back up the stairs and through the "Staff Only" door, almost immediately feeling a vibration at her hip from a text message that must only now have gone through thanks to the absence of a signal below ground. She reaches down to her pocket and pulls her phone out with her slender fingers, swiping at the screen to read the message that Armin apparently sent a few minutes ago.

A posh-looking, college girl is forced to avoid Annie after the C-4 toting blonde stops dead in her tracks. Her breath catches in her throat and her blue eyes widen as she stares at the five words imprinted upon the illuminated screen.

"I know where he is."


	4. Beneath

The drive out of the urban sprawl of Stohess and into the semi-rural area surrounding it was conducted primarily in silence. The mountain range off in the distance served as an idyllic background on the horizon; a popular locale for hikers and vacationers looking to enjoy the slopes at a ski resort or get away for a week in a quiet lodge. Both of the blondes occupying the silver luxury SUV probably could use something like that right about now, what with all the scattered thoughts swirling about in their respective heads. Annie drove while Armin sat in the passenger seat beside her, the two of them driving to the coordinates that were made known to them after Armin successfully managed to decrypt the flash drive that they were encoded on the night before.

It was still morning, and the sun had yet to reach its apex in the slightly cloudy blue sky. Somewhere out here in the more rustic small town of Dauper, Eren Yeager supposedly lived. By now they were getting close. The GPS told them that their destination was only a few more miles away. Annie was toeing the line quite severely between treating the posted speed limit as a law or as a recommendation. It had only been a few days since the possibility of Eren's continued survival was even brought up to her, but already she felt consumed by the weight of it. The uncertainty was eating away at her at an alarming rate, and she badly wished to put an end to it.

"Whatever the outcome is…at least we'll know." Armin says without prompting, turning his head from gazing out the window and over towards Annie, his large blue eyes filled with a tumultuous mixture of both hope and fear. Annie wasn't sure that hers didn't possess the same qualities right now.

She thought about what to say in response, but she couldn't quite get the words to come to her. Ultimately she elected to not say anything at all. She wasn't even sure that Armin was waiting for an answer either; from the way he spoke it almost sounded as if he was talking to himself more than he was to her. Still, she shared the sentiment. It was her hope that if nothing else, this day could provide some means of closure for her. His body was never recovered. She couldn't even tell him goodbye at his own funeral. Somehow she had managed to hold herself together back then. Mikasa tried to, she really did, but when she stepped up to give the eulogy she cracked like a delicate piece of china.

It was the first time that Annie had ever felt like she and Mikasa were kindred spirits. Despite all of their differences and disagreements, there was one bond that linked them inseparably: they both possessed an undying love for Eren. He was Mikasa's brother, had briefly been Annie's lover, and they had both fully devoted themselves to him. In the end, all of that love and devotion couldn't protect him. At that moment in time, Annie and Mikasa both knew that they were experiencing the same sorrow inside, even if they did have different ways of coping with it.

Mikasa let her tears run freely in front of everybody in attendance, earning her all of the sympathy while Annie sat through all of the proceedings in a stoic and detached silence. When it was all over, she went back to her home and got out of her clothes to take a long shower. Upon finishing, she threw on a bathrobe and went into the kitchen to pour herself a shot of whiskey, and then another for good measure. The burn in her mouth and throat was palpable. She left the glass on the counter and went into the bedroom in order to lie down, hoping to clear her head.

Then she spent the next two hours in her bed, violently sobbing herself to sleep.

* * *

"Ugh, how do you drink this stuff?" Sasha asks with a grimace, recoiling from the strong taste of the coffee that just slid down her throat. Ordinarily this would never be her beverage of choice, but on a stakeout it usually proved to be vital as a means of keeping one's self awake and alert. She and Jean had spent nearly twelve consecutive hours together in a parked car that was waiting for them at the airport when their BISI jet landed. After driving it out of the city and taking it to the location where the meeting was supposed to take place, they found a nice, inconspicuous spot in a parking lot across the street to hunker down in. From here, they had a pretty clear view of the shuttered and derelict gas station that they were to monitor until Annie's arrival.

"It's not so bad once you get used to it. Although I do take mine black, which probably isn't the best way to get introduced to it." Jean replies with a light grin from the driver's seat as he watches his auburn-haired colleague force herself to take another reluctant sip before handing the thermos back to him.

"Blech! I'm just going to be glad once this is over. As much as I wanted to get back in the field, a marathon stakeout wasn't exactly what I had in mind." Sasha says back as she rests against her own seat in the front of the unassuming blue sedan that was serving as the duo's base of operations for now. Neither one of them could leave until Annie showed up, or until they mutually agreed that enough time had passed where they could determine that she wasn't going to.

"Hey, how do you think I feel? At least you get to spend all this time hanging out with a handsome, debonair chap such as myself. I'm the one trapped in a confined space and stuck with the world's shortest attention span in the seat next to me." Jean barbs with a chuckle, earning him a sharp elbow into his upper arm. There weren't a whole lot of things that he found more enjoyable in life than picking on Sasha; at least partly because she made it so easy sometimes. Though the more Jean thought about it, the more the idea of being with Sasha under somewhat claustrophobic conditions appealed to him. She would probably feel warm and soft pressed up against him, in all of the most delightful ways. He could snake his arms around her slender waist and…he decided it was best not to think about this too much at the moment; considering the situation.

The two of them hadn't spoken a word about the incident during the flight to Stohess since it happened. Jean's efforts at consoling Sasha paid off in the end, as she ended up falling back to sleep while still cradled within his caring arms after all her tears had put her back into a state of exhaustion. The last thing that Jean wanted to do was let her go or leave her alone, so with some careful maneuvering he managed to make it so that they could both lie down on the leather couch together while he kept Sasha wrapped snugly in his grasp. It didn't take long for him to doze off as well, and they both only awoke once their jet had touched down on the runway in Stohess. There was some shared embarrassment when they had to get up from the position that they were in, but the topic of discussion never returned to Sasha's nightmare. She had absolutely no desire to talk about it whatsoever, and he figured it would be best not to broach the subject and instead just let her bring it up if she felt the need to.

In some respect it was actually rather propitious that they were here to apprehend one of the country's most infamous Fixers who also just happened to be a former friend of theirs. If nothing else, it certainly served as a welcome distraction from the episode that had taken place in the air. Still, both agents would be lying if they said they didn't have a knot in their respective stomachs about having to arrest Annie. They knew that she was supposed to meet with another Fixer here, but they didn't know who and they didn't know for what purpose. Another thing they knew was that Annie was – and still is – a criminal. That much was not up for dispute. Once upon a time they had worked together; they knew that Annie had killed people. Not exactly innocent people, but murder was still murder no matter how many ways you wanted to slice it.

"Do you think she'll put up a fight?" Jean suddenly heard come from beside him, startling him slightly after he had become lost in thought. He looked back over to see Sasha wearing a somber expression on her face, the same sorts of thoughts apparently having begun to sink in for her as well.

"If we do our jobs right, she won't get a chance to." He replied after a light sigh, not wanting to consider what could transpire if things did turn ugly during the arrest. Annie Leonhart was a not a person to be trifled with under normal circumstances, let alone something as galling as this would be to her. The best piece of consolation that Jean could come up with was that he was mostly positive that Annie wouldn't try to shoot either of them.

His attention was abruptly captured by the sight of a silver SUV slowing down and turning into the rundown gas station. He watched as the vehicle parked itself beside one of the now fuel-less gas pumps, and nudged Sasha wordlessly in order to make sure she was taking notice as well. He heard a quiet gasp come from his shoulder as his partner did indeed look over and spot the same SUV that he had. For a minute nothing happened, save for the occasional car or truck passing by on the road in between the gas station and the parking lot they were conducting their stakeout from; and then both front doors on the SUV swung open at the same time.

The unmistakable figure belonging to Annie emerged from the driver's side, but to their shock another very familiar face stepped out from the passenger's side. It took a second to make a confirmation due to the baggy, dark-green hoodie he was wearing, but once he turned around and revealed his face to them it was impossible not to recognize Armin.

"What the hell is Armin doing here?" Jean blurts out stunned at seeing the short, blonde boy accompanying the even shorter blonde girl; wondering what in all hell could possibly have them working together.

"Maybe that's who she was coming here to meet?" Sasha asks while trying to make sense of things just as much as Jean right now, knowing even as the words escape from her lips that that couldn't possibly be the case. Otherwise they wouldn't have arrived together in the same vehicle.

"Well…it doesn't really matter now. If he's here, we have to bring him in too." Jean replies with a disheartened sigh, already not having been enthused about having to bring one of his former comrades into custody; let alone two.

"Are…are you sure? Our mission was to arrest Annie and bring her back. Maybe we can let—

"Our mission is to arrest Annie and anybody she's associating with who we can tie to criminal activity. That includes Armin." Jean interrupts, sending a stern look over towards Sasha to remind her not to let emotional attachments stop her from doing her job. He was no less happy about it than she was, but he was here to serve as an agent of the BISI above all else. He was going to make sure he completed his objectives.

"Yeah…I know. How do you want to proceed then?" Sasha asks with deflation soaking her voice as she and Jean both watch Annie and Armin walk around behind the gas station after their attempts at entering through the front door proved unsuccessful.

"Give them a few minutes to meet up with whoever they're here to meet up with. That way we can ambush them all at once. Don't give any of them a chance to get away." Jean responds as the two blondes disappear from view. Now it was just time to wait.

* * *

"If the front door was locked, do you really think we're going to have better luck with the back door?" Armin asks a bit perplexed, following close behind Annie around to the back of the gas station and approaching the back door with her.

"No, but back here nobody on the road is going to be able to see us break in." Annie replies as she presses her back up against the wall right beside the back door, motioning for Armin to get next to her. Once he's done so, she reaches to her hip and pulls her revolver out from its holster, turning her head away and shielding her face with her free arm as she swings her gun by the barrel and uses the handle to smash through the large pane of glass held within the door's thick metal frame. The sound of dozens of tiny, broken shards all clattering to the ground fills the air while Annie carefully reaches through the hole she made to unlock the back door from the inside.

"So what are we looking for in here?" Annie asks as she and Armin both walk inside of the minimart portion of the abandoned gas station, the shattered glass crunching beneath her boots and his sneakers. The shelves and freezers of a small convenience store are all still present and covered in dust, having been barren for quite some time now.

"I don't know. There wasn't very much information on that drive beyond these coordinates. This is definitely supposed to be the place, but as for how to find Eren here…" Armin answers, his voice trailing off as both he and Annie start to look for clues or anything peculiar enough to warrant further inspection. This was the location that was embedded within the flash drive that Pockets gave to her containing Eren's supposed hideout, but there was certainly nothing to suggest that now that they were inside. It appeared as though nobody had set foot in here for a long while prior to Annie and Armin's forced entrance just now; which was not a particularly encouraging sign.

Annie walked around behind the counter where the cashier would have stood if this place was still in business, her steely blue eyes cast downwards toward the grayish linoleum floor searching for any signs of inhabitation. All that was there was a rectangular, black mat; the kind you'd see right in front of doorways for people to wipe their feet on either before or just upon entering so as not to get the floor inside dirty. She crouched down and peeled it up off the floor by one of the corners, hoping something hidden would be revealed underneath. She only found some linoleum that had been protected from getting dusty.

Meanwhile, Armin had taken to examining the shelves and the freezer compartments on the opposite wall from the counter. His analytical mind didn't want to admit it, but after coming all this way he had really gotten his hopes up that somehow – someway – Eren had managed to survive the incident at the Asiata Complex and remain in hiding these last three years. What they'd found here so far was quickly unraveling all of his optimism. Out of compulsion more than anything, he reached out and opened up one of the tall freezers, glancing it up and down with his own pair of baby blues before shutting the glass door again. As he went to step away though, something odd clicked in his brain.

He held up his hand and looked at his fingers and palm, then back at the plastic handle to the freezer. There was nothing there on either his hand or the handle. Wheels turning in his head, he moved to the next freezer down the line and grabbed onto its handle. He felt it immediately. Pulling his hand back, he scrutinized it again and saw the particles of dust that were now present; and likewise he noticed the streaks on the handle where his fingers had been that now stood out as a starker black against the remainder that was still partially concealed in dust.

"Annie! I found something over here!" He exclaims with a renewed sense of optimism in his voice, returning to the freezer absent of dust while Annie rushes over to join him and become enlightened to his discovery. "This freezer; there's no dust on the handle. All the other ones, hell everything in here, is covered in it. Somebody has been in here and whatever they've been doing…this freezer is a part of it."

The diminutive girl glanced back and forth between both Armin and the freezer that he had just pointed out to her, feeling her heart rate increase inside her chest at now being perhaps one step closer to finding Eren. Further investigation obviously now required, Annie opened up the glass door to the tall, narrow compartment that was just big enough for a person to fit inside of; though it was somewhat easier for her due to her stature. She slowly spun herself around in order to examine the walls after she stepped inside, scanning them for anything unusual-looking that might be discreetly hidden there. When her search revealed nothing, she cast her attention downward.

Armin stood by while watching Annie step back out from the suspicious freezer, not wishing to interrupt her during her process and just quietly observing as she crouched down in front of the open door. Annie rolled up one sleeve of her cream-colored sweater and reached inside in order to run her hand across the floor; letting her small fingers travel across the metal bottom that was similarly lacking any trace of dust. Gently, she rapped her knuckles upon the center and the noise was somewhat hollow.

"It's a false bottom. Should have realized it as soon as I walked on it." She informs Armin with a slight hint of frustration in her voice from it taking her a minute to figure out the secret to this box.

"Here, let me help you get it off." He offers as he gets down in a squat right next to Annie, both of them grabbing onto the lip of the metal panel and letting out a grunt of exertion as they pull the hefty slab out from its place and drag it all the way out of the freezer; letting it clang down onto the floor as they now turned their attention to what was revealed in its absence. Where the bottom of the freezer had just been, there was now an opening to a shaft that led below the ground; metal rungs to a ladder bolted into the concrete wall closest to where the two Fixers now stood, peering down warily into the dark passage.

"Well…I was hoping for something slightly less foreboding." Armin remarks with a glance and an uneasy grin over towards Annie, who couldn't bring her eyes away from the route leading underneath the earth to acknowledge him. After a few further seconds of contemplation, she took a step forward and began maneuvering herself into the hole in order to start climbing down the ladder. "Wait, you're just going to go down there?!"

"You have a better idea for finding Eren?"

"But we don't even know if he's actually down there. It could be a trap."

"I'll take my chances. Now are you coming with me or not?" Annie paused already a few feet down the ladder, casting her gaze straight up in order to make eye contact with Armin; still standing out in front of the freezer looking as dead set against traveling through the shaft as he possibly could. Once Annie grew impatient of his nervous shifting, she continued on her own and soon heard a defeated huff come from up above; light and shadows shifting on the walls around her from Armin entering the passageway as well.

Neither one of them could tell exactly how far down they were going. There were no markings on any of the walls and the very dim lighting made it hard to make a visual approximation. Annie guessed that it was about thirty-feet deep by the time the soles of her boots finally found the floor again, and a fluorescent bulb suddenly came to life to illuminate the surrounding area. There wasn't much to see, except for a steel security door with no knob or handle to speak of; only a keypad installed on the wall just beside it for entrants to punch in the required code.

"Armin, can you hack this?" She asked hopefully, looking over her shoulder at the tech genius as he made it to the bottom of the ladder and saw the door as well.

"Maybe. Without a primary access point in the system it'll be tricky, but certainly doable. Just give me a minute." Came his reply as he fished his phone out from the pocket of his jeans; fingertips swiping their way across the screen as he accessed some of his custom-built mobile hacking software, hoping to make good use of it here. If there was ever a time for his skills to be invaluable, this would probably be it.

He hadn't even finished fully syncing up his phone with the keypad's signal when they both heard a chime ring out, and a green light appeared on the small, rectangular screen at the top of the keypad. A second later, the solid steel door slid open without Armin even needing to do a single thing. The look of surprise on his face was enough for Annie to pick up on that.

"That wasn't you, was it?" She asked him, and he shook his head in response.

"No. Someone opened it from another source."

"Someone who knows we're here."

Now that the two of them could see past the door, they discovered that the sophistication of technology only continued inside. From where they were standing, they could see multiple screens and monitors mounted upon a stark white wall; some of them streaming news channels while others appeared to display assorted maps and diagrams. There was a glass table located not too far away where numerous papers and folders were strewn out, along with what appeared to be an assault rifle of some design. This was clearly a command center for somebody, though neither blonde could detect any signs of it being presently inhabited.

"It could've been activated from a remote location. Someone with a camera feed on this door." Armin theorized as his eyes looked back at the keypad with its glowing green light. He knew it wouldn't be too difficult to conceal a small camera behind a screen like that. Annie was, again, not fully listening. Much like when they had first uncovered the shaft, she was too focused on being right on the cusp of finding Eren to pay much attention to anything else.

She strode forward through the open doorway with far more confidence than Armin was comfortable with; his crystal-blue eyes going wide as Annie made her way into the underground bunker without seeming the least bit apprehensive about it. After she had taken a few steps in without being shot, he again followed her lead and entered. Once he was in, the door sealed itself back shut. Whoever it was that had granted them entry was the only one who would be allowing them to leave, it seemed.

Now that the two of them were fully inside, they could fully grasp the size of this high-tech, secret lair. It was impressively sizable considering its location; larger than Annie's own apartment it seemed. It actually had more resemblance to a living space than any kind of Fixer hideout in all honesty. Outside of the one area with the wall of screens and the paper-laden table with an assault rifle on top, it wouldn't be too difficult to mistake this place as a very modernist home. The floor was black tiles where they were currently standing, but it shifted to white tiles where the living room was located in order to contrast better with the darker furniture.

"So I guess we should start taking a look around…right Annie? Annie?" Armin asks as he cautiously makes his way over towards the glass table, repeating the girl's name when she fails to respond and turning back around towards her. She had ventured a little further into the hideout in the direction of a hallway that Armin was unable to peek down from the spot he was currently standing in. It instantaneously struck him that something was wrong though, from the way Annie was standing almost frozen in place; it even appearing as if her breathing had ceased.

The oxygen was caught in her throat temporarily, and Armin's words were little more than a fuzzy din at the moment. Up until this very second in time, Annie hadn't even been one-hundred-percent convinced that this wasn't some kind of cruel and malicious wild goose chase. The evidence had been mounting, but Armin could have been right and it always could have been some sort of elaborate scheme. Now all of those doubts and concerns could be laid to rest once and for all, because at the other end of the hallway where Annie's astonished blue eyes were staring, Eren Yeager stood; very much alive.

"Annie, what's the—" Armin found himself asking as he approached the paralyzed girl, his own voice faltering as he now cast his gaze down the hall and saw the same thing – the same person – that Annie was seeing. It almost felt like time had frozen to a standstill; with nobody moving or saying a word due to the shock of this reunion. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but in reality was only about ten seconds, the silence was broken by the man of the hour.

"Annie…Armin…it's good to see you again." Eren says with a warm smile spreading across his lips, these being the only words he could think to say while his brain attempted to process the enormity of this situation. He never thought he would actually see any of his friends in the flesh again, but now two of them were right here in his home. Somehow they had found him, and while there were certainly many questions to be asked about that, those could wait for another time. After all, he was sure that he was going to be subjected to a battery of questions himself soon enough. All Eren wanted to do right now though was enjoy this moment.

He started walking down the hall towards the two of them, glad to see that Armin was beaming from ear to ear while Annie remained as hard to read as ever. The features of her face simultaneously appeared to be expressing no emotion and every possible emotion at the same time. Regardless of this, she began walking towards him as well. Eren wasn't entirely sure why or what to expect. A hug would be pretty nice, but then again Annie had never been the type for things like hugging or cuddle; not in the presence of others at least. When they were together and alone with each other, he was actually surprised by just how vulnerable Annie allowed herself to become. Maybe the emotion and magnitude of the moment would make her drop her guard though even with Armin around.

Whatever Eren was expecting, it was not what he received. When he and Annie finally did meet near the middle of the hallway, he was not prepared for the fist that she had balled up and sent crashing into his chin. The impact of the blow combined with the fact that he hadn't seen it coming in the slightest sent him careening backwards and stumbling onto his ass with a thud. Before he could even lift his hand up to his jaw to assess the damage, Annie had pounced on him with a swiftness that once again caught him off guard. He at least braced himself for an attack this time, but it never came. This was because all Annie had done was flung her arms around Eren's neck while dropping down onto her knees to fully embrace him; resting her chin on his shoulder and her cheek brushing against his. Her small, toned body began to softly tremble as Eren realized what was going on and reciprocated the hug by wrapping his own arms tightly around her waist; all at once remembering how wonderful she felt to hold and how sweet her voice could be when she whispered to him.

"It's good to see you too."

* * *

"So it's just the two of you here then?" Eren asks while carefully pouring some fresh, hot tea out from the kettle and into three porcelain mugs for him and his friends to enjoy while they chatted.

"Yeah, nobody else even knew what we were up to. I wouldn't have even been clued in if Annie hadn't sought out my help."

"I needed someone who knew a thing or two about computers. Ordinarily I would have asked Reiner or Bertolt to help, but I would have been better off just taking a hammer to it." Annie remarks with a playful smile as Eren brings out the mugs on a small tray, placing it down on the long, black coffee table serving as the centerpiece of his living room. All three of them took one of the drinks from it while Eren sat down on the leather couch to join Annie; Armin seated nearby in a large, matching armchair. Neither one of them mentioned it, but they both wondered if Eren had a seating arrangement like this just to make it feel like a normal home, or if he actually received visitors.

"It's nice to know that some of you guys still keep in touch. So come on then, fill me in on what everyone has been up to." Eren says with a smile before taking a sip of his tea; eager to hear what his former companions had made of themselves since his disappearance.

"Let's see…Jean and Sasha ended up switching teams. They work as agents for the BISI now." Armin informs him, curious to what Eren's reaction will be to learning that Jean and Sasha's job now was to hunt down people like them.

"I'm sorry, Sasha Braus? They let her be an employee of the federal government? I didn't know that the BISI was so desperate to catch us." Eren replies with a laugh that Annie and Armin both shared. He was taking the news well.

"Reiner and Bert are in Stohess; same as me. I usually try to see them about once a week. If you can imagine it, they're still the same as always. Ymir usually hangs around in the city too, but she slips away from time to time. Part of her business I guess, now that she's 'retired' from being a Fixer in order to take on a much more relaxing life as an international arms dealer." Annie adds to provide Eren with further information, pretty much exhausting her knowledge of what the old Syndicate members are currently up to since he'd last seen any of them three years ago.

"She did always have a fondness for big guns. That helped get us out of a jam more times than I'd probably liked it to have. Is she still with Krista?" Eren inquires as Annie shakes her head no in response.

"They broke up about a year ago. I guess it was really more like Ymir gave Krista no choice though." She says, prompted to go on by Eren cocking his head to the side in confusion. Armin was pretty familiar with the story since he and Krista had remained friends, though he hadn't heard from her lately. "I think we all are aware that Ymir has…a very voracious appetite. This can become a problem when you own a nightclub and hire girls to work there and dress like they just came off a street corner. She told me that she must have been fucking a dozen different girls behind Krista's back. When she finally found out…that's not really something you can so easily forgive."

"Wow…I never would have thought that Ymir would betray Krista like that. Especially a way that's so extreme. I mean, yeah she was practically addicted to sex, but she was crazy about that girl." Eren responds feeling quite surprised by this revelation.

"She still is. She likes to act like she doesn't have a care in the world, but once in a while when I'm hanging out with her and she's had a few drinks, it all comes pouring out; how she can hardly cope with the guilt, how she wishes she could go back and change things, but mostly just how she wishes she could talk to Krista one more time. I think now she just uses the sex to keep herself busy more than anything else. If she lets her mind wander too long, she'll just spiral downward." Annie continues with a somber sigh, often having taken a more cynical view of Ymir's heartbreak in the past. You had something special, you ruined it, and it's your fault that she's gone. Not that she ever said these things to Ymir, because that's generally not what a friend is supposed to do, but she found it hard to muster empathy for her. Not when Krista was still alive and Eren was dead. Things seemed different now though somehow with Eren sitting just a couple feet to her side on the couch.

"Damn. How about we move onto somebody else? What about Connie? I'm sure that will cheer me up." Eren proposes, unaware of the pit that had suddenly formed in the stomachs of both Armin and Annie. He was halfway through another sip of his tea when he noticed that glances that the two of them were exchanging with each other.

"Umm…I'm not really sure the best way to say this Eren, but…Connie…he's not…he's…" Armin sputters while nervously rubbing the back of his head and trying to search for the right words, but Eren didn't need him to continue.

"You don't have to say it Armin." He told his uneasy best friend while averting his eyes down to the bright, white floor. A heavy silence hung in the air as Eren came to grips with learning that one of his men – one of his friends – was no longer with them. He wondered if the sting he felt right now was the same way Annie and Armin had felt when they first thought that he was dead. "How did it happen?" For a second neither of them answered.

"We don't know. Neither one of us were there, we only heard about it later. I think it was Reiner who ended up telling both of us, and he didn't have any other information except that apparently it happened in Shiganshina." Armin answers, wishing that he could give Eren more closure than that.

"I guess at this point I need to ask…what about Mikasa? Please tell me that she's still…you know." Eren says with a feeling of ominous dread hanging over his head like the blade of a guillotine, ready to decapitate him in an instant based on the content of the answer he was about to receive. Again, a brief pause occurred as Armin and Annie glanced at one another.

"I think it would be a better idea if you asked her yourself." Armin finally says with a smile, removing his phone from his pocket.

* * *

A chilly breeze blew through the night and made its way through Mikasa's jet black hair; a few strands dancing in the wind as she stood out on the balcony overlooking the cityscape. The nippiness caused her to shiver a bit at the cold, and in response she pulled her scarf tighter around her chin and neck. She lingered upon the soft, red fabric and toyed with it a bit in her fingers; the simple tug of it filling her head with memories.

She and her small crew of Fixers were currently residing in a charming villa crested on a hill in the suburbs of the city of Karanese. It would serve as the temporary home for the next month or two until she decided it was time for them to move on and find work elsewhere. This was the way that she liked to operate; not sticking around in any one place for too long, lest you make it easy for your enemies to track you down. By moving across the country and to a new city every so often, it made things rather difficult for the authorities. By the time they were finally able to pinpoint which city she and her crew were operating in, more often than not they had already moved on to the next location. As a result, they'd informally been nicknamed The Nomads.

Mikasa wasn't entirely fond of the designation that people had just decided to give to her wandering group, but if it helped when clients were trying to choose who to contact for a job, she could live with it.

"Mikasa?"

The voice behind her made the raven-haired girl startle slightly, not having heard someone approaching, but she calmly turned around in recognition of one of her pupils.

"Yes Thomas?" She asks with a placid expression on her face to the blonde boy barely more than eighteen, who always seemed frightened to speak to her when nobody else was around. Mikasa was making a concerted effort not to come across as so unfriendly.

"Umm, Samuel and I were thinking about going into the city for a little while. Neither of us have ever been to Karanese before. So…would that be alright?" He replies with his own question, scratching the back of his head and glancing down towards his feet. Perhaps she was going to have to try harder.

"It's alright with me Thomas. Just don't stay out too late, and don't go to any of the casinos. If we end up working on a job at one of them, I don't want them to know any of our faces ahead of time."

"Right, of course. Thanks Mikasa. I promise, we won't be gone for too long." Thomas affirms with a relieved smile before exiting and going off to inform Samuel of the good news. Mikasa couldn't help but notice how sometimes her younger protégés seemed to treat her like she was their mother. She didn't particularly mind this, despite being in just her mid-twenties, but whenever she thought about it she was left with a sinking feeling. In her own life she had known two women who meant enough to her to call "mom", but had them both brutally taken away from her. Her birth parents were both murdered when she was nine, and the parents that took her in after that died in a car crash when she was seventeen. The son that those parents had was killed when she was twenty-three.

A day hadn't gone by since then where she didn't think about Eren. He often occupied her thoughts whenever she was left with nothing to do, but by now she felt as if she had done a good job of being able to focus only on positive memories that she and her adoptive brother had shared. It was only once in a great while now that the devastating hole his departure had left in her life managed to overwhelm her with misery and woe. She really hoped that this wasn't going to be one of those nights.

Yet here she found herself, left to her own devices. Thomas and Samuel had likely already departed the house, and the only other member of her crew, Mina, was already asleep. She didn't the option to socialize with anybody here. She could however make a call if she was that worried about it. Maybe a nice chat with Armin or Krista would help keep her relaxed and at ease. With this in mind, she left the balcony and shut the glass doors behind her as she reentered her private bedroom.

Her phone was lying on top of the nightstand, and to Mikasa's surprise, as she advanced towards it the device lit up and started ringing on its own. By sheer coincidence, it appeared that she was getting a call from Armin as she picked it up and let her dark eyes read over the caller ID. Needless to say, she was quite pleased by this as now she didn't have to deal with the uneasiness of the possibility of her closest friends being too busy to answer her.

"Hello?" Mikasa greeted formally as she pressed the green button on the screen, waiting to hear Armin's familiar voice on the other end. What came through the speaker instead nearly caused her to faint on the spot.

"Mikasa…you have no idea how amazing it is to hear your voice again." Eren replies to her, his own voice already beginning to crack as emotion overwhelmed him. Mikasa's voice did not crack, as she had no words to speak. That was an action that she presently had no idea how to perform. Instead she stood there in shock with her mouth agape and a deep chill running along her spine. Finally, she pulled herself together enough to respond to her beloved brother in the only way she was capable of at this point in time.

And so, she started to cry.


End file.
